codePost/Slack notifications

This is a repository to download data from codePost and to trigger Slack notifications in certain circumstances, based off of the basic-git-scraper template.

Summary

This repository uses a synchronized GitHub Action trigger to regularly check codePost for certain changes to data (such as available submissions, graded submissions, etc.), and to trigger a Slack notification if changes were found.

Configuration

There should be a config.yaml file with the following format:

# The slack channel ids
channels:
  "#126-grading-notifications": "ABC123"

# The message formats
messages:
  notification: "*{assignment}*: {done:.2%} done 
    ({finalized} finalized, {drafts} drafts, {unclaimed} left to grade)"
  recent_graders: "Graders who recently finalized: {graders}"
  deadline: "*{assignment}*: All submissions should now be finalized
    ({deadline} deadline)"

# The courses and assignments to send notifications for
sources:
  - course: "COS126"
    period: "F2022"
    channel: "#126-grading-notifications"
    assignments:
      - name: "Hello"
        start: "2022-09-14"
        end: "2022-09-18"
        deadline: "2022-09-16 17:00"
      - name: "Loops"
        start: "2022-09-21"
        end: "2022-09-25"
        deadline: "2022-09-23 17:00"
      - name: "NBody"
        start: "2022-09-28"
        end: "2022-10-02"
        deadline: "2022-09-30 17:00"

For each assignment, the start and end values defines a date range (with possibly unbounded ends) for when that assignment should be processed. Dates should be in the format "YYYY-MM-DD" and will be considered in Eastern Time.

The optional deadline value defines a time to send a notification that the deadline has passed for all submissions to be finalized. The value should be in the format "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" and will be considered in Eastern Time.

To customize the text of certain notification messages, define the messages mapping. Each value should follow Python str.format specifications, with possible variable replacements. The following keys are supported:

• notification (required): The notification message whenever an assignment has different numbers for total, unclaimed, drafts, or finalized submissions. Accepts the following variables:
  • assignment: The name of the assignment being processed.
  • done: The percentage of assignments finalized. Note this number is between 0 and 1, so it is recommended to use the {done:.2%} format to format it as a percentage.
  • total: The total number of submissions.
  • finalized: The number of finalized submissions.
  • drafts: The number of draft submissions.
  • unclaimed: The number of unclaimed submissions.
• recent_graders: A message to attach after notification listing the graders who have finalized a submission since the last run. Only applies if the number of graders is greater than 0. Accepts the following variables:
  • graders: A comma separated list of all the graders in backticks.
• deadline: The notification message for when the deadline for an assignment is passed. Accepts the following variables:
  • assignment: The name of the assignment being processed.
  • deadline: The specified deadline in the config file for this assignment.
  • done: The percentage of assignments finalized. Note this number is between 0 and 1, so it is recommended to use the {done:.2%} format to format it as a percentage.
  • total: The total number of submissions.
  • finalized: The number of finalized submissions.
  • drafts: The number of draft submissions.
  • unclaimed: The number of unclaimed submissions.

Deterministic Finite Automaton

• Read from data/*,
• Fetch recent data from codePost,
• Compare to cached data,
• If there are changes, trigger a Slack notification,
• Update the cached data.

Output Format

To see the format of the saved data, see the schema for the data at 'data_schema.json'.

References

• utas_slack_bot.py is the bot that is used to send Slack notifications based on updated data from codePost.
• This is how to store both the codePost key and the Slack OAuth key securely in the repository to use them in the GitHub Actions flow: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/security-guides/encrypted-secrets.

Local development

• Clone repository: git clone https://github.com/PrincetonCS-UCA/slack-notifications-grading.git
• Install the dependencies in a virtual environment: pipenv install
• Run in the venv: pipenv run python utas_slack_bot.py